Abstract
The feedback induced by mesoscale wind stress-SST coupling to the ocean in the western coast of South America was studied using the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS). To represent the feedback, an empirical mesoscale wind stress perturbation model was constructed from satellite observations, and was incorporated into the ocean model. Comparing two experiments with and without the mesoscale wind stress-SST coupling, it was found that SST in the mesoscale coupling experiment was reduced in the western coast of South America, with the maximum values of 0.5 °C in the Peru Sea and 0.7 °C in the Chile Sea. A mixed layer heat budget analysis indicates that horizontal advection is the main term that explains the reduction in SST. Specifically, the feedback induced by mesoscale wind stress-SST coupling to the ocean can enhance vertical velocity in the nearshore area through the Ekman pumping, which brings subsurface cold water to the sea surface. These results indicate that the feedback due to the mesoscale wind stress-SST coupling to the ocean has the potential for reducing the warm SST bias often seen in the large-scale climate model simulations in this region.
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Data Availability Statement
All the satellite data are obtained from the Asia-Pacific Data-Research Center (APDRC) of the University of Hawaii, which is available at http://apdrc.soest.hawaii.edu/las/v6/dataset?catitem=1. The model data and computer codes used in this paper are available from the authors (e-mail: rzhang@qdio.ac.cn).
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The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments that helped to improve the original manuscript.
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Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFC1404102 (2017YFC1404100)), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Nos. XDA19060102, XDB40000000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41690122 (41690120), 41421005), the NSFC-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers (No. U1406402), and the Taishan Scholarship
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Cui, C., Zhang, RH., Wei, Y. et al. Mesoscale wind stress-SST coupling induced feedback to the ocean in the western coast of South America. J. Ocean. Limnol. 39, 785–799 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-020-0182-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-020-0182-7